Fact check: Before Obama there was no Black Lives Matter, but there was ISIS and antifa – USA TODAY

U.S. president Donald Trump announced ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a special operations raid. Here is a look at who he was. Wochit

A social media posttying together former President Barack Obama, ISIS, Black Lives Matter, antifa and a "war on police"is circulating virally online.

The post, uploaded by Facebook user Kathie Wilxox Gilmore on March 2, 2019, reads this: "Before Obama we had no ISIS! Before Obama we had no BLM! Before Obama we had no ANTIFA! Before Obama we had no war on cops!"

Gilmore did not return a request for comment.

Barack Obama was elected president in 2008. When did these groups or movements start?

ISIS, the Islamic State also known asISIL andDaesh, emerged as an offshoot of Osama bin Ladens al Qaeda Network in Iraq. It wasfounded by Abu Musab al Zarqawi in 2004, according to information fromHistory.com.

ISISfaded for several years after the surge of United States militarytroops to Iraq in 2007, according to he Wilson Center.It reemerged in 2011,and over the next few years, took advantage of growing instability in Iraq and Syria to carry out attacks and bolster its ranks.

In 2013, the terrorist group changed its name to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

Black Lives Matter is an organized movement that advocates for nonviolent civil disobedience and protests againstpolice brutality towardsAfrican Americans. It wasfounded onJuly 13, 2013, byAlicia Garza,Patrisse Cullors andOpal Tometi.

The group was createdin response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, a white man accused of killing Trayvon Martin, a Black man, on Feb. 26, 2012. Trayvonwas targeted, pursued and shot dead by Zimmerman in a gated neighborhood in Sanford, Florida.

A Black Lives Matter Mural was painted at the intersection of W. Locust St. and N. Martin Luther King Drive on Friday, June 19, 2020 in Milwaukee.(Photo: Chelsey Lewis and James B. Nelson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel via USA TODAY Network)

Antifa,an anti-fascist political movement in the United States anda defensive response to the growing presence of right-wing extremism, was founded in 1932, well before Obama was born on Aug. 4,1961.

After the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017led to violentclashesbetween white nationalists and counter-protesters, American awareness of that oppositionrose dramatically, TIME reported.

Antifa drewsupportfrom some and drew condemnation from others includingfrom President Donald Trump for what appearedto beviolent tactics. In March 2018, Merriam-Webster added antifa to the dictionary.

In July of 2016, a law enforcement advocacy group head lashed out at Obama in the wake of the Dallas shootings that left five police officers dead. He accused the president of carrying out a "war on cops."

I think (the Obama administration)continued appeasements at the federal level with the Department of Justice, their appeasement of violent criminals, their refusal to condemn movements like Black Lives Matter, actively calling for the death of police officers, that type of thing, all the while blaming police for the problems in this country has led directly to the climate that has made Dallas possible, said William Johnson, the executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations. "It's a war on cops."

Pallbearers lead the flag draped coffin of slain Dallas police officer Patrick Zamarripa into place for an honor guard ceremony at Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery in Dallas, Saturday, July 16, 2016. Zamarripa was one of five officers killed last week by a lone gunman during a protest march in Dallas.(Photo: LM Otero, AP)

Obama quicklycondemned the Dallas shootings, which happened at the end of a protest about the killings of two Black men by police officers, calling it a "vicious, calculated and despicable attack."

"Let's be clear: There are no possible justifications for these attacks or any violence towards law enforcement," Obama said.

Also in 2016, New York Public Radio published a story that the idea of a "'War on Cops'doesn't bear out in data, at least numerically."

According tothe Officers Down Memorial Page, which tracks police deaths, the number of officers who have been intentionally killed on the job has fallen from 101 per year under President Ronald Reagan, to 90 per year under George H.W. Bush; to 81 per year under Bill Clinton; to 72 per year under George W. Bush; to 62 per year under Barack Obama a figure that doesn't change when accounting for the Dallas ambush.

Chuck Wexler, executive director of thePolice Executive Research Forum, says that when it comes to violence against police, America is doing much better than we think.

In the '60s and '70s, you did have a lot of police officers who were killed more so than today ambush and deliberately killed, he says. You had the Black Panther movement and the fight back and forth between the police from New York to Oakland....It was a difficult time then, much like it is now, but overall, the numbers have come down.

We rate this claim as PARTLY FALSE, based on our research. It is true that Black Lives Matter was established in 2013, during President Barack Obama's second term. But it is false to say ISIS, antifa and a "war on cops" also did not exist before the 44th president entered the White House.

Reach Natalie Neysa Alund at nalund@tennessean.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/02/fact-check-there-black-lives-matter-isis-antifa-before-barack-obama/5363122002/

View original post here:

Fact check: Before Obama there was no Black Lives Matter, but there was ISIS and antifa - USA TODAY